Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival

FEBRUARY 1-3, 2002

By Charles Shapiro

Registration for this 24th annual festival in Atlanta topped last year's by over 50, with 184 jugglers. The gym did not seem unusually crowded, which indicates that the large number of registrations probably reflects not more jugglers, but a greater proportion of them actually signing in.

The gym stayed open until 11 p.m. Friday night, with many big passing patterns and exuberant greetings in evidence. This year's T-shirt emblem by Lee Downing featured a picture of a groundhog in a wizard's cap with the slogan, "Lord of the Clubs, Balls, and Rings:'

Saturday's weather remained cool but clear, so the unicyclists and hardier folks could go outside of the crowded gym. Helping round out the usual motley crew of club throwers, unicyclists, and diabolists was a healthy contingent of serious yo­yo players - the 2002 Georgia State Yo-Yo Contest took place in the gym, featuring tricks such as "Skin the Gerbil" and "Advanced Split the Atom:' The contest winners in Single were Styron Pennywell (1), Lao Alovu (2), and Anthony Greer (3). In Sport, winners were Josiah Kailing (1), Bruce Plott (2), and Travis Bish (3). The "Team Tarkin Controlled Chaos Award" went to Josiah Kailing for his exceptional freestyle performance.

Henry Slack brought the sign-up sheet from the 1982 Groundhog Day Festival, which had 65 names on it. Six folks from that group were in the gym and had attended every one of the intervening 19 festivals.

The Kelly's Seed & Feed Marching Abominable band kicked off the competition in fine form this year (led by our own Bruce Plott carrying the highly symbolic broom), after which seven hardy contestants braved the spotlight in contention for the coveted Phil award. Book Kennison of Saint Charles, Missouri was Most Astounding. His act included several remarkable three-ball flexibility tricks, including a double­twist Mills Mess, juggling with either hand across his back, and a finale which featured a three-ball juggle with one foot hooked behind his head. Most Amazing was Erik Tate of Knoxville, Tennessee, with a well-paced three- and four-ball routine, which concluded ",ith a brief run of five.

Seth Rider of Edgewater, Maryland took Most Awesome with a three-ball routine featuring blind throws across the back of his neck. Other notable acts included Aaron Rider playing a bag­pipe while riding the unicycle, young David Brown and Robbie Kuhn ending their perform­ance passing seven clubs flat, and a fine Iying­down three-ball routine by Alex Burke. The SalsAtlanta dancers, led by Julian Mejia, showed the audience a "Rueda" - hot Latin dancing ­ as the judges deliberated.

The rest of the day was taken up with passing, teaching, learning, and the usual activities of a busy juggling festival, with a thrilling assortment of pairs and singles intently work­ing on impossible tricks, and groups of widely varying experience working on tricks easy, hard, and in-between.

The midnight Cabaret was emceed by Rick Purtee, with stage management from Jon Perry. Paul DiMuzio started with a good three-, four-, and five-ball act. Next, Mike Gardner of Emory University soulfully sang several rap songs to an acoustic. guitar; many of the post baby-boom generation were in tears (of laughter). Charles

Shapiro won the Mouse award this year. The DVO's Bambola sang a couple of songs, Erik Tate showed a routine in the dark with three glow balls, and Jon Perry did an audience participation act involving the name of a famous beer. Tim Settimi played ukulele and probed the musical and dramatic possibilities of an aluminum cane. Seth Beasley did a daring fire eating act, and Rodger French performed his flag routine, successfully spelling deoxyribonucleic acid in just three letters. Carrie McQueen closed the show with a musical torch swinging act.

On Sunday, Tim Settimi led an informal but large workshop on mime techniques, illustrat­ing such useful skills as walking without actually going anywhere, creating intangible walls, and going up and down nonexistent stairs. Other workshops also included large-group cIub­passing, and the obligatory Three Balls for Civilians. The festival finished at five p.m., and many of us went on to the traditional dinner at Thai One On.

Alex Burke demonstrates his feats.